[Psychosocial aspects in the care of stoma patients]

The assistance offered to a patient during the process of adapting to a stoma should always be tailored to individual needs and to disease development. This requires consideration of all those involved in treatment and care, including from the very outset the family doctor, the patient's relatives and pastor, as well as the nursing staff of community-based health and social services centres (Sozialstationen). Adjustment to a stoma takes about twelve months. It is important, among others, to see about social-legislative aids being made available, and to actively enhance the patient getting in touch with a self-help group if he does not do so of his own accord. The smooth interplay of all those involved in treatment and care, the experience of a kind of therapeutic community, are most likely to ensure to the patient an individualized and speedy course of the rehabilitative process.